Previous reviewers have suggested that women display lower self-confidence than men across almost all achievement situations. The empirical validity of this suggestion is assessed. The literature indicates that although low self-confidence is indeed a frequent and potentially debilitating problem among women, they are not lower in self-confidence than men in all achievement situations. Instead, the nature of this sex difference depends upon such situation variables as the specific ability area, the availability of performance feedback, and the emphasis placed upon social comparison or evaluation. It is concluded that future research must more precisely identify the variables that influence women's self-confidence. l

This article presents evidence for the hypothesis that cross-sex behavior is motivationally problematic for sex-typed individuals and that they actively avoid it as a result. In particular, when asked to indicate which of a series of paired activities they would prefer to perform for pay while being photographed, sex-typed subjects were more likely than either androgynous or sexreversed subjects to prefer sex-appropriate activity and to resist sex-inappropriate activity, even though such choices cost them money. Moreover, actually engaging in cross-sex behavior caused sex-typed subjects to report greater psychological discomfort and more negative feelings about themselves.

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